Lawyer for Bobby Davis criticizes Syracuse University for refusing to release its Bernie Fine report

Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-Standard...Lawyer Gloria Allred and her client, Bobby Davis, speak at a February 2012 news conference in Albany.

A lawyer for Bernie Fine’s chief accuser today criticized Syracuse University for not releasing a report on its 2005 investigation into child-molesting allegations.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer for former ball boy Bobby Davis, said SU was perpetuating feelings of shame among victims by failing to release information about its investigation into Davis’ allegations against the former assistant basketball coach.

Allred was responding to a story in The Post-Standard about the SU investigative report into Davis’ claim that Fine molested him when Davis was a ball boy in the 1980s.

The report makes a cryptic reference to a 2004 phone message that Fine says Davis left in which Davis apologized and said he was wrong. But the report doesn’t say what Davis was apologizing for.

“No comment on the so-called ‘apology,’¤” Allred wrote today in an email to The Post-Standard.

She chastised SU for refusing to release the report to Davis’ legal team, and for refusing to inform his lawyers about what steps the university has taken to investigate the 2005 investigation.

“We find it remarkable that the University still has failed to issue any statement regarding what they knew and did not know,” Allred wrote. “This kind of code of silence can only serve to promote feelings of shame in victims and protect perpetrators.”

SU fired Fine in November. He has denied all wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Richard L. Thompson, chairman of SU's Board of Trustees, said in an email today that a special committee of the board is reviewing the university's response to Davis' allegations in 2005.

"The Special Committee will report on its conclusions when its review is complete," Thompson wrote. "Until that time, it is not appropriate to comment further.”